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In the News (from NewScientist): “Your attitude towards other people can have a big effect on your health. Being lonely increases the risk of everything from heart attacks to dementia, depression and death, whereas people who are satisfied with their social lives sleep better, age more slowly and respond better to vaccines. The effect is so strong that curing loneliness is as good for your health as giving up smoking, according to John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago, Illinois, who has spent his career studying the effects of social isolation.

“’It’s probably the single most powerful behavioural finding in the world, agrees Charles Raison of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who studies mind-body interactions. ‘People who have rich social lives and warm, open relationships don’t get sick and they live longer.’ …

“Cacioppo reported that in lonely people, genes involved in cortisol signalling and the inflammatory response were up-regulated, and that immune cells important in fighting bacteria were more active, too.”